Lady Gethin took it, and sat looking at it for a moment or two, her keen black eyes suffused with tears. "This is indeed a message from the grave," she said, with much emotion. "I gave this ring to Isabel Acton, a few days before she married my relative, Gilbert Deering. I was very poor at the time, and had little or nothing to give, so took this quaint old thing from my finger to put on hers. I never saw the poor girl again."
"What an extraordinary piece of evidence!" exclaimed Glynn.
"It corroborates the effect of your daughter's remarkable likeness to her mother. 'There is a providence that shapes our ends,'" said Lady Gethin in a low tone, and silence fell upon them, from which she was the first to rouse herself.
"There is no time to be lost in making some arrangement that will relieve you from this horrible condition of fear and concealment. Let us consult my lawyer."
"A lawyer!—no, no!" cried Lambert. "That would be dangerous."
"We must proceed with infinite caution," observed Glynn. "Deering's position is a strong one. You have only your own word to weigh against his. If we could get hold of Vincent?"
"There is little chance of that," said Lambert. "If I could only be sure my precious Elsie were safe."
"She shall come and stay with me," cried Lady Gethin with enthusiasm.
"That would be going into the lion's jaws," said Glynn. "This is my plan: I have learned to love your daughter (as I still consider her); let me try and win her; and let us keep all dark till she is my wife."
Lambert stretched out his hand to grasp Glynn's; he tried to speak in vain, and burst into a fit of hysterical weeping.